This invention relates to dryers for extracting moisture from wet goods, such as linens, and in particular to a dryer having a seal system for preventing leakage of air from the tumbler cylinder of the dryer.
Dryers of the nature of the present invention are typically utilized in commercial laundering facilities where large quantities of wet linens are dried in batches of up to several hundred pounds. Wet linens are delivered to the dryer in large "cakes" such as those illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,509,275, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
A typical commercial dryer includes a tumbler cylinder mounted for rotation about a horizontal axis and which has an open side through which cakes of linens are inserted and dried goods are removed. The cylinder is housed within a shell and is rotated about the horizontal axis. The shell is pivoted at either its bottom or its top so that the shell can be tipped forward or rearward to permit dry linens to be removed therefrom.
As energy costs have escalated, it has become particularly important that the efficiency of the dryer be as high as possible. One major area of loss in the typical dryer is due to leakage of heated air, usually in the vicinity of the tumbler cylinder. While rubber gaskets and similar seals have been used in the past in order to form appropriate seals to prevent air leakage or prevent migration of heated drying air directly to the air outlet without passing through the wet goods in the interior of the tumbler cylinder, because of the nature of items dried in a commercial dryer, such seals are often ineffective. Not only do the seals dry and crack with age, but also any foreign objects which might find their way into the tumbler cylinder tend to protrude through the perforated openings in the cylinder, and tear the seals as the tumbler cylinder is rotated. Thus, flexible rubber seals are usually rendered partly or wholly inoperative soon after a commercial dryer is placed into operation.